Here's the suggestions already provided to change the look and feel of the Planet MULE interface.
If you have a suggestion for a specific aspect of the game interface (such as how a certain phase operates or displays), check the
Beginner's Guide for a list of suggestions pertaining to that segment of the application.
If you have a suggestion for a change to the
actual gameplay of MULE or something that involves image attachments or artistic endeavor, please post it in the
Gameplay Ideas or
Design and Art forums.
I will endeavor to keep this updated as much as possible. If you see that your post has been locked or removed, chances are good you've mentioned something that's already been suggested and it's on this list.
If you have questions or comments about this list, feel free to PM me or start a thread about it.
- Allow users to choose from an assortment of "skins" that change the look of the interface, including a "Classic" skin that contains the aliased, low-res sprites and characters of the Atari/C64 version.
- Make resource symbols look more distinct on the map; alternatively, provide more differentiation between the "factory" icons on developed plots so one can see at a glance what is being harvested on each plot.
- Allow hotseat play (4 inputs from the host computer, as opposed to connecting via LAN or internet).
- In a similar vein, provide support for USB/Serial port input devices such as joysticks and joypads (DirectX?)
- Expanded sound settings, which include adjustable volumes for both music and sound effects.
- Players can select their own colors for use during the game, from a predefined list.
- Player colors need to be made more vivid and adjusted to suit color-blind players better.
- Additional music added for various phases of the game.
- When a digit or text field is too small to contain a large number / long name, automatically scale the font size down to compensate.
- Display additional game information in the chat window, such as events that occur or important statistics.
- Alternatively, include these messages in the final game long so games can be followed more closely.
- Alternatively, provide an additional window which just displays game event messages.
- Fullscreen mode should keep the chat window viewable (and usable).
- Alternatively, anything entered in chat should pop up briefly on the fullscreen mode, then fade.
- Private messages between players in a game ("Hey, let's screw the leader *this* way...")
- Built-in voice chat capability, including private channels to speak only to specific players ("canoodling", as some call it)
- Multi-lingual support ("El mercado tiene una escasez de Comida!")
- When resizing the application window, the game map should adjust its scaling as well.
- Choose alternate port with which to connect to the master server for hosting games (instead of 6260)
- Enable Universal Plug & Play functionality which will automatically program routers/firewalls to open the necessary ports for hosting games.
- Depending on the OS, use the OS's user-specific directory environment to store game variables/settings. That way, multiple users logging in on the same physical computer can preserve their individual settings.
- A feature allowing players to pause the game at additional points beyond just the end of a round.
- Record game activity in a way that can be replayed later, so games can be studied.
- Log out from the lobby without restarting the application entirely.
